Revisiting the work of A. E. Housman. By Adam Kirsch.

A 250-metre long fatberg weighing 130 tonnes has been found blocking a sewer. The solid mass of congealed fat, wet wipes, nappies, oil and condoms formed in the Victorian-era tunnel in Whitechapel, London. Thames Water described it as one of the largest it had seen and said it would take three weeks to remove.

The number of Britons who say they have no religion has hit a record high, new data has revealed. More than half of the British public (53 per cent) say they are not at all religious – a figure that has increased by five percentage points since 2015 and by 19 percentage points since 1983, when just three in 10 people deemed themselves non-religious. The news has prompted fresh calls for the Government to cut the amount of public money going to the church and reduce its influence in society.

Imagine the most English-English person you can think of. Now I’m fairly certain that no matter what picture you just conjured up, that person comes complete with a stiff upper lip and a cup of tea in their hand. Because that’s what the English do. They carry on and they drink tea. Tea is so utterly English, such an ingrained part of the culture, that it’s also ingrained in how everyone else around the world perceives that culture.

A litter of piglets whose bacon was saved from a barn fire has been served up as dinner to the firefighters who rescued them. The 18 piglets and two sows survived the fire in Wiltshire in February, which saw 60 tonnes of hay catch fire. In a controversial move, farm manager Rachel Rivers thanked the Pewsey fire team by giving them sausages. The firefighters initially said the bangers were "fantastic" but following complaints have since said sorry.

It is the longest time that Big Ben has been paused during its 157-year history

The Queen is preparing to make Prince Charles King of England and abdicated the throne, according to reports. Queen Elizabeth, 91, intends to step aside when she turns 95, a Royal Household source told The Mail. They said: "Out of the profound respect the Queen holds for the institution of monarchy and its stewardship, Her Majesty would want to make sure that she has done everything she can for her country and her people before she hands over. She is dutiful to her core.

More than 100 buildings have failed the latest fire safety tests set up in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, the government has said. Tests examined the safety of cladding in combination with a polyethylene filler and stone insulation. Of the 111 buildings to fail the test, 90 are local authority or housing association-owned.

Riot-trained prison staff were sent to a jail amid reports of violence on two wings. Sources earlier told BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw that one wing of HMP The Mount in Hertfordshire and half of another wing had been "lost". The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) later said the incident was "resolved" and no staff or prisoners had been injured.

Free movement of people from the European Union will end in March 2019 when Britain leaves the bloc, Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said on Monday, after ministers gave a range of conflicting views about the Brexit divorce. Since May lost her parliamentary majority in a June election, divisions between her ministers over Brexit strategy have broken into the open, with an intense public debate in recent days while May has been away on holiday.

A driver lost control of his new £200,000 Ferrari and careered off a motorway before it burst into flames - after owning it for just an hour. The high-performance Ferrari 430 Scuderia was reduced to a twisted wreck after the smash on the M1 near junction 37 in South Yorkshire on Thursday afternoon. Police described how the car "went airborne" in the wet conditions.

A boy with autism celebrated his 11th birthday with cards sent from all over the world after his mum made an appeal on social media. Lisa Jackson from Southsea, asked people to send a card to her son Ben because no-one came to a previous birthday party. Dedicated trolleys were set up at Portsmouth sorting office to handle the tens of thousands of cards

“I can’t tell you how irritating it is to be an atheist in a haunted house” – Matthew Tobin Anderson. By Aaron Dabbah.

Cleaning up the Uffington Horse is the neigh-borly thing to do. By Emily Cleaver.

Former residents of Grenfell Tower are still having rent taken out of their bank account for the burnt-out property in north Kensington, according to a campaign director representing survivors. At least one household that managed to escape the blaze discovered earlier this week that rent instalments had been deducted for their flat in the 24-story block.

A mother has described the distress of discovering her baby son had been circumcised without her consent. The woman, from Nottingham, said she opened her son's nappy to find him covered in blood - and was so distraught she had to leave the room. She has battled for four years for authorities to take action.

The company responsible for managing Grenfell Tower has changed the locks on a community centre used to provide art therapy for children affected by the tragedy, stranding parents and children outside in the street when they came to seek help. Therapists had been running the club for a week, but when they turned up on Tuesday to find their keys no longer worked.

A woman who appeared on missing persons posters after the Grenfell Tower fire is alive and was saved by a fireman, her family revealed today. Friends of Fadumo Ahmed, 32, who lived on the 19th floor of the 24-storey block, feared the worst after hearing no news of her. However, it emerged today that she was pulled unconscious from the upper floors of the tower by a fireman, who saved her life.

Nearly a quarter of all the rivers in England are at risk because of the vast amounts of water being removed for use by farms, businesses and people homes, according to a new report. Environment Agency figures obtained under freedom of information law by conservation charity WWF showed that 14 per cent of rivers were classed as over-abstracted – “meaning water removed is causing river to drop below levels required to sustain wildlife”.

The UK Parliament has been hit by a cyber-security attack. MPs were reportedly told about the hack on Friday night and later told of difficulties in accessing their emails away from the Westminster estate. A Commons spokeswoman said the lack of email access was not a result of the cyber-attack itself but part of the steps being taken to manage the issue. She said Parliamentary authorities were liaising with the National Cyber Security Centre.